SAMANTHA

Samantha was 14. She had anorexia. She had a heart attack and died. I'm sorry I can't do justice to her life, but I'm very angry about this and I don't want to dwell on it now. Samantha, you were a bright light and I'm going to miss seeing your smile in the mornings.

Mac, I understand that it's difficult for you to face this with me. Have a good time hunting this weekend. I love You.

TAGGED BY VINNY

OK, so Mimi, Queen of the Memes was tagged by Lee . This meme originally comes from The Blue Tea person.Then Mimi tagged The Lady Of The Luggage, Anndi, who tagged The Voice Of The Tapes, Bud, who then tagged Bond sitting pretty on His Couch. Bond then had the temerity to suggest that MY life needs fixing, and tagged me ... okay, so maybe it could use a tweak or two ...

Rules:

Devise a list of 5-10 courses you would take to fix your life. It's more fun to be in classes with friends, so include one class from the person who tagged you that you'd also like to take. Tag five.


Okay, so ... I maintain that my life is nearly perfect. Then again, I'm in love, and everything looks beautiful to me right now. Even spiders ... okay, not spiders (evil, vicious monsters from hell that they are), but everything else. But I guess, in reflection, that there are a few things that I could work on to make things even better than they are.

First, I had to choose a course that Vinny conceived. Let me interject here that I can't imagine anyone that I'd enjoy taking a course with more than Vinny. I think He'd be a blast to study with, and I'm pretty sure He'd be the perfect balance between class clown and serious student. In fact, I liked the idea so much, I decided to take two courses with Him. Besides, I figure I might be able to get Him to share His gravy recipe with me if I have enough time to work on Him..

The first one is Vinny's Time Management class. I mean, who couldn't use a little more balance in their lives. I'd like to figure out how to spend as much time with Mac and my little guy as I can, do a good job at work, and still have time left over for my friends and other family, with maybe a little time in there to clean house occasionally.

Second, through circumstances which are beyond my control, I will be spending Christmas Day alone this year. My parents are going on a cruise, my brother's family will be in Florida with Mickey, Mac is going to Colorado to spend the holidays with His daughters, and my son will be spending Christmas Day with his daddy's family. A little bit of Vinny's Holidays Without Your Son 101 might come in handy, slightly modified to Holidays Without Your Loved Ones ...

Okay, so now I've got to come up with three more courses ...

This would be an excellent one for me, and if it existed, I'd definitely enroll: Overcoming Body Issues. I've never been happy with the way I look. Not that I'm a dog or anything (I've never understood that comparison, because I think dogs are beautiful creatures) but I'm perpetually conscious of the extra weight I carry, if I'm having a bad hair day, my freckles, scars, short nose, you name it. Mac has done a lot to help me overcome that, because He thinks I'm beautiful, even on my worst days, but the issues are still there and I wish they weren't.

Staying in Focus is another course from which I would benefit greatly. I have an artistic temperament, and all that entails. I'm creative, and my mind runs on several different tracks at once. When I'm at my best, I can juggle 9 or 10 tasks all at the same time and keep things moving along quite satisfactorily. However, those instances are rare, and more often than not, when I am faced with a new task, sometimes I forget what I was doing with the others and then have to review my processes in order to figure out how to keep going. Or worse, I forget there even WAS another task ...

See, this is what I mean. I got distracted and now it's two hours later, and before I can finish this thing, I have to go back and read what I wrote up to this point.

Okay, now I'm ready to finish this thing. I've been pretty serious up to this point, and I really don't feel I should buck that trend, so this is the final course I really feel would improve my life immeasurably. I know there are many who would agree. If I could, I would take a course in Shoe Shopping. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find the perfect shoe without breaking the bank? Comfort squared plus style over economy times durability divided by time? The perfect combination is more complex than a scientific formula. Some of you know exactly what I'm talking about. Others, well ... you never will get it, but that's okay because you probably wear sneakers all the time anyway.

Now I'm supposed to tag some people, and I have no idea who's still in the blogging game these days, or who's been tagged, so I'll just say that if you haven't done it, you should, because it makes you realize how great your life already is and how nitpicky we have gotten these days. Then, after you do it, go earn grains of rice on Anndi's Luggage Warehouse for the hungry people in the world. Because those are the people who need our consideration. My problems are miniscule compared to theirs. How about yours?

A BRIEF RESPITE FROM THE "LOVEY-DOVEY" STUFF (just for Meri)

Okay, enough with the jocularity, on with the gushy, lovey-dovey. Hey, I'm in love and I want to shout it from the rooftops. What's more, it's returned a thousandfold. Mac loves me just as much as I love him. There's the miracle. This intelligent, kind, thoughtful, generous, sensual man loves me for exactly who I am. Isn't that something? So, when I post lovesongs here, it's for him, because it's all about how he makes me feel. I love you, Mac.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

My warmest wishes to all my friends for peace and joy in the holiday season.



And for my beloved Mac, someday, Sweetheart, as we are laying in each other's arms and I am singing softly to you, let us remember all the days I would "sing to you" by posting here. These songs are the embodiment of all my dreams, my hope, my wishes, my emotions. And they are all for you. You are my Best Friend, my Dream Come True, my Confidante, my Rock, my Lover ... You are truly my Everything. Every day, I am thankful for you. I love you, forever and beyond.




For you, my One and Only.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, SWEETHEART

For those of you unaware, I have been seeing a wonderful gentleman by the name of Mac. Today is the 5 month anniversary of our first meeting and subsequent conversation, which lasted from 8:45 pm until 7:08 the following morning. Things have only gotten better since we met. We never seem to run out of things to talk about and seek each other's company with the eagerness of loved ones separated for months, as opposed to hours. Mac and I are cautiously optimistic that we have discovered something extraordinary in each other, and we have begun making plans for a shared future.

Mac, this song is for you. You are the only one other than my son with whom I have ever shared it, as I always believed it was meant to be special. I love you, Sweetheart.

LEST WE FORGET

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place: and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch: be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders Fields.

by Royal Canadian Army Medical Corp officer, Dr. John McCrae [1872-1918]

John McCrae was born in Guelph, Ontario and attended the Guelph Collegiate Vocational Institute. He then studied medicine on a scholarship at the University of Toronto.

McCrae served in the artillery during the Second Boer War.

When the British declared war on Germany at the start of World War I, Canada, as a Dominion within the British Empire, declared war also.

McCrae was appointed as a field surgeon in the Canadian artillery and was in charge of a field hospital during the Second Battle of Ypres in 1915. McCrae's friend and former student, Lt. Alexis Helmer, was killed in the battle, and his burial inspired the poem, In Flanders Fields, which was written on May 3, 1915.

'In Flanders Fields' appeared anonymously in Punch on 8 December 1915, but in the index to that year McCrae was named as the author. The verses swiftly became one of the most popular poems of the war, used in countless fund-raising campaigns and frequently translated. 'In Flanders Fields' was also extensively printed in the USA, which was contemplating joining the war, alongside a 'reply' by R. W. Lillard, ("...Fear not that you have died for naught, / The torch ye threw to us we caught...").

In late January 1918, while still commanding No 3 Canadian General Hospital (McGill) at Boulogne, McCrae died of pneumonia.